


The Gunslinger and The Man In Black

by sasha_b



Series: Live By The Sword [17]
Category: King Arthur (2004), Original Work
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-04
Updated: 2013-10-04
Packaged: 2017-12-28 10:29:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/990968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sasha_b/pseuds/sasha_b
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Part of the <i>Live By The Sword ‘verse.  </i>The not so distant future; one cop, one heir to a crime syndicate.  This is set after <i>Boulevard of Broken Dreams, </i>early in Arthur’s career.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Gunslinger and The Man In Black

**Author's Note:**

> I adore The Dark Tower series by Stephen King; the title of this story comes from that.

 

 The sunset was one of the most beautiful Lt. Arthur Castus had ever seen.  From where he was, high up over the ocean, it was compounded and made more unreal by the uninterrupted vista he had of it.  Ignoring the burnt out cars and trash that littered the beach, one could almost remember the magnificence of Malibu.  Palm trees swaying, birds calling, the surf pounding…

…and the sickening thud of a human body hitting the concrete.

“Castus!  God damn it!  I told you to back off!”

Arthur’s shins were barked from where he had hit them on the building ledge in his effort to rush forward and reach for the jumper.  Too late.  Too, too late.

His trousers torn, he looked blankly at the small amount of blood that seeped from the wounds.  A hand on his shoulder turned him around roughly, and he cast dead eyes on his CO.

“What.  The fuck, Arthur,” the man hissed.  “I told you the negotiator was on his way.”

Arthur looked blankly back at the man.  “Yes, sir.  But I was getting through to him.  He was listening to me.  I had him-“

“And now he’s a messy splat on the ground,” Captain Germanus sighed.  “God damn.”  They both moved back to the edge, Germanus making a face, Arthur merely staring.

“Go home, Castus,” the other man told him.  “We’ll discuss this later.”

That order sparked some life in Arthur.  “But, sir,” he started.  The older man shook his bald head.

“Uh uh,” he stated sharply.  “Later.  Go.  Take the rest of the weekend off.”

“Sir, I –“

“GO.”

Arthur stiffened, saluted quickly, and opened the metal door that led back into the abandoned building.  More police personnel and photographers were starting to make their way out to the roof, but Arthur brushed past them, picking up his discarded helmet on the way to the elevator.  The ride down made him think of an episode of some old vampire show he had seen late at night once, on one of those insomniac nights where he couldn’t rest no matter what he did, where the hero thought he was taking the elevator to Hell –

only when he got there, Hell turned out to be right there.  That day, that time, that place.  It was all around him.  He hadn’t needed to travel at all to get to the lowest place in life – all he had to do was open his eyes.

The doors opened on the ground with a _ping_ , Arthur surprised the noise still worked, and the dusty old elevator spat him out into a phalanx of reporters and more personnel.  They threw questions at him (he was the first person down from the roof, after all), which he completely ignored.  After the reaction from Germanus, he didn’t dare say anything.  Pushing through the crowd, he walked around to the back side of the building, where the police had the area sectioned off for just authorized people.  He made it as far as his motorcycle before his knees hit the ground, vomit staining the pristine chrome.

Choking slightly, he heaved until he was just retching, bile burning his throat and nose.  No one said anything, or approached him.  They all gave him a wide berth, and he stood finally, shaking and wiping his mouth.  He leant against his bike, breathing heavily through his nose, his eyes closed.  Didn’t matter – he could still see the image of that man, a broken doll on the sidewalk.  It was burned on the insides of his lids.

He moved when he sensed something had changed, opening his eyes.  The sun had set, the sky now purple tinged with gold, gorgeous like nothing he’d ever seen.

It was what he knew Hell would look like.

*

Arthur stood at the edge of his bedroom door, watching Lancelot, who was watching himself in the mirror, the black of his pants and shirt making the white of his skin seem stark.  The other man turned as he finished fastening his fly, and Arthur started when Lancelot’s face came into view – it looked distorted, skin stretched thin over his skull, the bones evident underneath.

“Arthur! Fuck, I didn’t know you were home,” the younger man said in surprise, jerking the little earpiece to his iPod out.  “Sorry.”

Arthur looked again at Lance, who stared back at him, concern growing on his smiling countenance, no skull showing now.  Arthur shook his head; perhaps it had been a trick of the light.

“What happened?”

Arthur crossed the room to his bed, where he sat and removed his boots, his eyes drawn to his comforter, a blood red crimson that had seemed nice when he bought it.  “Why did I choose this color?” he asked, his voice flat, tone annoyed.  “It doesn’t really go with anything else.”

“That should answer your question right there, Arthur,” Lance teased gently, sitting next to him on the bed.  “Why pick stuff that matches when you can be distinctive?”

When Arthur didn’t answer, the younger man’s eyes narrowed, and he knocked his knee softly into Arthur’s.  “How’s the day?”

A short breath shot out of Arthur’s nose; how to respond to that?  He wasn’t really sure whether he wanted to.  What good would it do?

“Arthur,” came the quiet voice, “tell me.”

Arthur’s brain buzzed; he felt light headed and suddenly couldn’t concentrate on the simplest of tasks, like finding his tongue.  “Not right now, Lancelot,” he replied distractedly, dazedly.  “I’m going to lay down.”  

Lance didn’t say anything about Arthur using his full name – the older man looked ashen and just plain strange.  He smelled of sweat and something sour as well, an odor that Lancelot never associated with Arthur.  “Are you hungry?” Lance decided a change of topic might get the other man to snap out of whatever funk he was in.

“No.  Maybe later.”  Arthur lay out on the bed, bending his knees, his arms folding in to lie close to his chest.  Lancelot watched him, then stood, moving so Arthur could stretch out if he wanted to.   Pulling a blanket off the end of Arthur’s bed, Lance lay it over him, crouching next to the prone man when he was finished.

“I’ll be in the kitchen or out on the deck, okay?”  Arthur nodded his understanding, and Lance straightened up.  He began to walk out of the room, then bit his lip, turning.  “Arthur – please tell me.”

“Later.”

Crossing back to him, Lance bent once, and brushed his lips gently across Arthur’s.  He pulled back when there was nothing but the cursory flicker of Arthur’s eyes.

“You know where I’ll be.  Call if you need anything.”

This time he did leave the room, and Arthur allowed the trembling to start in his body as soon as he heard Lance’s footsteps retreating down the stairs.

*

The hands on Arthur’s body were crushing him, breaking, grinding bones into dust, smashing his organs, covering his mouth so he couldn’t scream.  He thrashed and moaned, using his feet, his muscles, his teeth to try and get out from the bonds that grew tighter the more he fought.  Some repetitive word began to knock it’s way into his consciousness, something that was familiar, but he couldn’t quite grasp why it was.

He latched onto that sound, and began to move towards it, the closer he got, the thinner the hold on him.  He was almost there; the noise was beginning to make more sense –

“Arthur!!”

Arthur’s eyes flew open; he was halfway out of bed, the covers rumpled and tossed around him, his shirt open, his face and torso coated in sweat.  Lancelot’s arms were like bands of iron around him.  His eyes popped, and he relaxed suddenly, going limp in the other man’s embrace.  “Christ!  I thought I was going to have to knock you out!  You scared the shit out of me!”  Lance was babbling, his arms loosening, moving back so he could look Arthur in the face.  “What in the hell is going on?”

Arthur’s eyes focused on the other man’s, terror and love warring in the deep brown, which reflected only Arthur’s grey face.  He collapsed further, his body feeling as if it could actually move again – whatever bonds that had encircled him gone now.

“Arthur, please, for the love of God, talk to me.”  Lance was begging now, something he never did.  Arthur registered the fact slowly, and turned his gaze over to him.

“Something happened today – on the job,” he started, having to clear his throat to make himself understood, “something bad.  Something that I fucked up.”

Lancelot had risen, unclenching his fingers, trying to get rid of the pain from clutching at Arthur so hard.  He sat next to Arthur on the bed, the sheets falling fully to the ground.  “I have a hard time believing that,” he began, his own short time in the Academy spent listening to the professors that knew he and Arthur were friends go on and on about how brilliant the man was.

Arthur put up a hand; Lance stopped talking.  Arthur’s head was dropped, his eyes on his fingers, which were picking at his torn uniform pants.  “A man jumped off the King’s Bank Building in Malibu.”

Lance made a face, he nodded.  “I heard about that on the news.  I didn’t know you were on the scene.”

Arthur laughed; a bitter, nasty thing that turned Lancelot’s stomach.  “You could say that.  I was the first one there.”

Lancelot hissed in a breath in surprise; he put his hand on Arthur’s knee.  “Oh, Gods, Arthur.  I’m sorry – did you find the body?”

Arthur’s head rose, and he met Lance’s eyes.  “No, you don’t understand – I was the first one there – up on the roof.  I was the one who talked to him.”

“Shit, Arthur.  What happened?  Where was the negotiator?”

“On his way.  I was just supposed to keep the guy occupied until he got there – I wasn’t supposed to talk to him about his reasons or whatever.”  Arthur scrubbed a hand over his face, the stubble burning his skin.  Lance’s fingers tightened on his knee.

“I thought I could get through to him – make him see reason.  How hard is it just to sympathise with someone?  I thought – I thought…”

He had to look away from Lance, who’s face echoed the misery he had felt right after the man had jumped, but it was worse, because the brown orbs conveyed pity as well.  Arthur didn’t think he could take pity – he didn’t deserve it.  If he had just done his _job_ , had just done as he was told, and not tried to play hero like he always did, things might have turned out better.

That man might be at home with his family, instead of pulp on the concrete of the DMZ that used to be Malibu.

“Fuck!” he cursed suddenly, startling Lance so that the other man jumped.  His eyes burned and filled, and he wound his hands together, slumping back against the bedframe.  “He jumped anyway,” he whispered, his legs bent, clenched hands on the kneecaps like butterflies just waiting for a reason to be scared off.

“He jumped.  And I didn’t … I couldn’t catch him.”  A sob broke through his mask of sterility so unexpectedly that it physically hurt.  “I didn’t catch him.”

“Arthur,” Lancelot murmured, his own expression crumpling, his eyes burning.  “Oh, Arthur.”  He crawled up the bed, nestling next to Arthur, and wrapped his arms around him, Arthur broken like Lance had never seen him.  He tugged and the other man lay stiffly against Lance, weeping silently. 

Lance had only ever seen Arthur cry perhaps twice – this being the second time, the first when his mother had died – so this wasn’t exactly normal behavior.   All he knew, however, and all he cared about, was that Arthur knew he was there, and that Lance didn’t blame him for anything.  That he wasn’t at fault, and that he was loved.  He twined a few fingers in the longish hair at the base of Arthur’s neck, rubbing gently, a few soft words whispered to the other man.  Lancelot didn’t know or care if Arthur heard him.  He just kept it up, trying to soothe with his presence and the mere power of his thoughts and feelings.

Lancelot kept a hold on Arthur until the older man stopped crying; he held him still as Arthur told him the whole story, in halting phrases punctuated with long pauses as he collected himself.  Rubbing Arthur’s back, Lance moved slightly so Arthur could sit up straight if he so wished – which he did, making Lance feel slightly better about Arthur’s mood.  His appearance, however, was a different thing entirely.

Long fingers traced the well known features; Arthur’s eyebrows, his stubbled cheeks, his prominently Roman looking nose, his red lips that were parted so he could breathe.  “God forgive me,” Arthur whispered when he was finished, “I failed that man.  What if I fail someone else?  What if an innocent gets killed because I didn’t move fast enough?  Or because I didn’t think things through?”

“Arthur – you cannot go through life thinking that.  None of us could do any kind of job, or even live, if we constantly question ourselves, or our worth.  You’re a good man.  One of the best I’ve ever known.  That poor guy – there’s no way to know if he would have jumped had you been there or not.  You can’t take on that burden, Arthur, otherwise, you’ll question yourself until you can’t take a step without wondering _what if?_ ”

Arthur sighed, his shoulders unkinking slightly.  He sniffled, and wiped his nose.  “How do you know for sure?”

Lancelot shrugged.  “I don’t.  But there is one thing I _do_ know.”

Arthur waited.

“I turned myself around.  I made changes that I thought were impossible only months ago.  And I did those things with your help.  With _your_ help, Arthur. 

We live.  We’re born, we love if we’re lucky, and we’re dust.  That’s it.  And you can’t know whether or not it will have been worth it in the end.  So, Arthur, mourn this man, learn from the experience, and most importantly, do your job, live your life, and be yourself.  That’s all you owe _anyone_.”

A tiny smile graced Arthur’s features briefly.  “God, but I _hate_ it when you actually listen to some of the things I say.”

Lancelot pulled a hurt expression.  “Well, shit, Arthur, I thought that was what you wanted all along.”  He laughed quietly, and kissed the side of Arthur's temple gently.

Arthur's tiny smiled widened, then disappeared.  “Thank you.”

Lance shook his head slowly, moving so his ear was resting over Arthur’s slowing heart, curling his body into the other man’s. “Don’t.  I love you.  No thanks needed.”

Arthur’s tired arms rose, and rested on Lance's hip.  It wasn’t quite the same as his normal embrace, but Lance would take it.  It was a step in the right direction, and that was enough for him – he could only hope it was enough for Arthur. 


End file.
